Category: Officiating Shortages
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Two days without games…
Almost 3 – I think there were only 3 varsity games scheduled (boys or girls) yesterday, the 23rd of December. So, we’ve reached Christmas. It’s Christmas eve here at my desk and I have Trans-Siberian Orchestra playing Christmas music and the rest of the family has still not managed to get out of bed, which…
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Remember me?
I’ve tried blogging off and on for the last 20 years. Always starts out great, but in the end, I lose interest, usually due to all the stuff going on in my life. Day job, commissioner work, officiating, real estate, family, and on and on and on. But I do want to try to do…
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Pay to officiate…
(Note: This is a draft written on May 25 that never got posted. Nothing’s changed.) The NCAA has a jillion dollars, but they expect their officials to pay to be part of the machine. Serious question – why doesn’t the NCAA pick up the cost of this? We know the answer.
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It’s been a while…
No excuses, just a new job, a few house listings, some softball tournaments – just a ton of stuff going on. But I thought I’d drop in to mention that assaulting officials continues to happen and it seems without penalty or even much notice. https://fb.watch/dP7Ka3DyaF/ Umpire turns to walk away from an argument and gets…
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Hold that thought…
I plan on writing about parent and spectator behavior later today, but I just saw this article on social media and figured I’d start with this. Much bigger post or series of posts starting tonight or tomorrow. https://www.mercedsunstar.com/sports/high-school/article261511232.html?fbclid=IwAR0-4_BdM8EeuOr96fq-QMonP5XcTza4t5F8g9IBJLg8Rq9FZ_YoVq1iZGk
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We’re paying $30 a game.
No. As Ref Union so eloquently said recently, “You’re offering $30 a game.” And I’m passing. Frankly, I don’t quite understand the economics of youth sports, other than someone’s getting a lot of money in many venues, and it isn’t the officials. This isn’t the case everywhere. I am involved with Little League, where officials…
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Tough times
I was going to make a detour and talk about youth sports today and why these organizations need to pay their officials a respectable rate, but I’ve spent all morning chasing officials for high school games. The shortage of officials, combined with the weather this spring and subsequent makeup dates has put us in a…
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Casey’s Debut
So I mentioned yesterday that my daughter Casey and I would be umpiring some low-stress scrimmages together. This was *the first time* that Casey ever umpired. The age group of these games was 14U, the same age group that Casey is coaching for her club. Some really high quality players on 3 teams yesterday and,…
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Detour – Umpiring Debut
This morning, weather permitting, my 17-year-old daughter will be making her umpiring debut with me, umpiring 3 low-stress 14U scrimmages with 3 teams just happy to get on the field after a terrible spring weather-wise. My guess is these are 14U players who are not of HS age, so likely younger 14Us, the same age…
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#1a – Show officials the money.
Note: This is Part 1 of this as I have more to say on this topic than anyone could possibly want to read in a single sitting. The feedback I received since posting yesterday focused mostly on fan/parent behavior and the unwillingness to address this in a meaningful way, but I’ll come back to that…